Philips confirms plan to launch first OLED TV "later this year"

Philips confirms plan to launch first OLED TV "later this year"

18 Feb 2016 | Rasmus Larsen |

Today in Brussels, Philips confirmed plans to launch its first OLED TV in Europe "later this year". It will likely be a flat 55-inch model but the final details are not yet in place.

Philips OLED TV coming soon

TP Vision, who is responsibly for selling Philips TVs in Europe, had a surprise announcement planned for its 2016 launch event in Brussels. In the picture quality demonstration room the company had placed an OLED TV next to a LCD model on one of the walls.

During the last stage of the demonstration it became clear that Philips had no intentions to talk up the LCD display’s strengths. Instead, the company started praising OLED for its unique picture quality characteristics. And finally, at the very end of the session, the company confirmed that it will launch its first OLED TV later this year.

The specifics are not yet in place and in the demonstration room the company used a 2015 OLED panel. When the real OLED TV hits the market it will use one of LG.Display’s 2016 OLED panels, which suggests that it will have 4K resolution and support HDR (high dynamic range). However, Philips did not confirm that. As things stand right now, Philips’ plan is to launch a flat 55-inch OLED TV (and no 65”) but they stressed that it is not yet set in stone.

The TV will come equipped with Philips’ most advanced image processing, which the company believes will give it an advantage over LG’s OLED TVs. In terms of price, Philips said that it will likely match or be more expensive than LG’s models.

Philips TVs are produced by TP Vision in Europe. In the US, Philips TV are produced by Funai. Funai has not yet announced plans to launch an OLED TV under the Philips brand in the US.

Philips did not confirm whether the TV will run Android TV, but if that happens it will be the first TV in the market to combine OLED with Google’s software.

Philips did not get any more specific that saying “later this year” but it is clear that the OLED TV will not be part of the Spring line-up. If we had to guess we would say that it will be announced as the new 9 series model at IFA 2016 in Berlin this September.